October 11th was slated to be a big day. Not only was it the first show of the PJ tour, but it also marked 20 weeks of baking the baby and we had a scheduled ultrasound
appointment at 7:30 that morning. It's "that" appointment where you can find out the gender. I had always said I did not want to know but when I got there, I was finding it
hard not knowing. Mike and I decided we would find out but keep it to ourselves. So off we went --- waking up at about 20 to 6 on the morning of a show (not ideal, right?)
and heading out for the appointment. We had the ultrasound tech write the baby's gender on an envelope and decided we would open it later in the venue.

We got on the road about 9:40 and had a relatively smooth trip to Pittsburgh - save for the Pizza Slut we had to have for lunch (SO gross, thank you Ohio Turnpike). I was
very nostalgic because I feel like during the 2003 tour, I practically lived on the Ohio and Pennsylvania Turnpikes. At least it was a lot easier to drive this time around since we
have the iPass for the car.

We made it to Pittsburgh right in time for rush hour...right before 4. Mike dropped me off and I ran inside to get my fan club tickets. I could not STAND Mellon Arena (you can read
about that in my recaps from the 2003 tour and the 2006 tour to get an idea about my feelings.) so I was overwhelmed with the Consol Center.
I went in some doors and was told to go up some escalators to the box office. I felt like I was going up 20 stories. It was so massive. Mellon seemed so small (and ahem, shitty), I just wasn't
expecting the crazy contrast. Saw Rich at the box office, got my tickets in section 114 and headed out to get back to the car so we could pick up Rob and go eat some dinner.

We had such a clusterfuck experience from there. Pittsburgh Friday traffic and 80 million bridges combined with the shittiest app Apple has ever made (it's called "Maps") really screwed us for dinner.
Rob knew of a place closer to the venue so we made reservations and miraculously made it there...to find it was a bit fancy for us riff raff but our waiter was cool (and a Wayne State grad at that --- small
freaking world) and they prepared us some vegan specialties. Was very good (name of restaurant, by the way, was Sonoma.)

Headed to the venue to see what looked like yet another Pittsburgh clusterfuck --- the "line"/crowd to get in. Wowie. But we ended up finding our way in quickly...the next step was the stupidass merch. I didn't care
to really get anything except for the sticker and a onesie. Of course I always want a PJ shirt, but those were my priorities. Mike and I loved the poster a ton (as did a lot of others) but we resolved that $35 was a silly amount to
spend when we have about 786 posters that need to be framed as it is. So anyway, the merch line inside the door was nuts...so decided to go up to another level to find another merch line which was also crazy, so they told us to go up another
level. I got there and while the line did not seem as crazy...but it turned out to be terrible. All for a $2 sticker? FUCK THAT. So I left and then found a guy had set up a poster only stand. That's where I started
second guessing the poster decision (omg, it would be so easy!) so I waited for a few and then decided that it was a dumb idea. So off I went to my seat...only the
Consol Center is set up very weird for a bunch of 100 level seats so I somehow walked right past my section but ran right into a merch booth.

Fuck...I might as well try, right?
So I merged into the cluster that is a Pearl Jam merch line and made pals with a few people in line and made agreements, "Whoever gets there first...grab me a poster, sticker, etc." The two guys by me wanted a poster, I just wanted a sticker
at that point. So...finally we got to the front where a guy in his early 20s was manning our side and I hate to say he was doing it poorly but he was. Everyone kept exclaiming, "Let me behind the table I'll get this bitch knocked out in no time." Yeah,
it was that bad. Anyway, one of the guys got his order taken before me so he got me my stickers...but I stood right next to him and saw they had the onesie...so...I got my onesie and booked it out of there to get to my seat.

At this point it was probably 7:30 (you know "show time" according to the ticket) but we knew that wasn't happening...so Mike and I took out the envelope, to discover that we were having a...

Haha, so totally not saying.

Finally the band hit the stage around 8:15...opening with Pendulum. Perfect fitting opener, but even better was how nicely it flowed into Of The Girl (and it was fantastic to not hear Of The Girl as an opener). With the next song
being Nothingman, you could see that the show was going to follow a similar trend to Wrigley and London.

Elderly Woman let us into Lightning Bolt which sounded much tighter than Wrigley. This was the real warm up as we got Mind Your Manners into Animal into Got Some.

A little bit of Yield time --- Given to Fly, Untitled (yes!), MFC and wooo hooo! Faithfull.

I was really looking forward to hearing Sirens live, so I am glad it came next. Unemployable was a request by...somebody. Could've done without but it was still ok with me. Let's be truthful...I had to pee (^&*^&*^&). I was waiting for a complete stinker to
go (full band Sleeping By Myself for example). I just couldn't leave Unemployable. I told Mike I needed to pee and when Daughter started, he was like, "You should just go now. You've seen Daughter a million times." I was like...hmmm, don't really want to
leave but you know, I better (let's hope that I can make it through Buffalo tonight without peeing but my hopes are low.)

I made it back in time for Infallible (which sounded great) and then Let the Records Play came next and you know what? I don't hate it and I think after seeing it live, I actually may even like it more.

Unthought Known (Ed's new Corduroy?) came next and the set closed with Rearviewmirror.

I didn't check the time but it really felt like the main set lasted for a long time.

The first encore opened with one of my favorites (and lot a lot of other people's...), Speed of Sound. People in my section decided it was a good time to sit down. Wimps. My body was achin' but I kept standing. Jerks.

Yellow Moon debut --- sounded great. Things got weird (or kicking, depending on how you look at it) when Ed brought out some Pittsburgh Pirates player (woo! sports!) who comes out to Whipping...to act like a bonehead and get in everyone's way
while they played Whipping. He was giant and he just looked so weird...I found it awkward. But I guess if I was in Detroit and it was Justin Verlander, I would get the sensationalism.

Do the Evolution rocked it and then the first encore closed out with Better Man and Porch.

Second set was a classic...starting slow with Black leading into Alive. Ended with Rockin' in the Free World and almost straight into Yellow Ledbetter where Ed put on a Pittsburgh Pirates helmet. That was bad enough but then
Stone put one on his [apparently] oversize large head. He is so precious.

Great show.

And not that anyone cares, we had the best experience after this show. We dropped Rob off at his hotel and then got lost trying to get back to our hotel because Apple's Maps decided to just not take us back to our hotel. It wanted us to sleep in the ghetto of
Pittsburgh apparently. We finally made it back to our hotel around 1:00am. There was no parking so Mike dropped me off (I had needed to pee since leaving the venue)...I go up to our room on the third floor...my hotel key did not work. I figured my phone demagnetized the key,
so pissed off, I went down to the front desk. Explained my issue, they recoded it. Go back up the elevator. Get to the room, key works only it appears the deadbolt latch thingy is preventing me from getting into my room. That's weird. We checked in earlier. All our shit is in the
room (Buffalo tickets, passport, iPad, MacBook, etc.) I try like five times. No joke. I was ready to drop to the floor and pee my pants. Grumbling, I went back to the front desk where they told me oh yeah...we should've left you a note. We messed up. We had to move your room. I was like...
what? All our stuff was in the room. The said they moved it and gave us a room upgrade. Now, I was pissed. But it was 1am. I wanted to get to bed. So Mike joined me at that point, we go up to the new room...guess what? Our keys don't work. Not even joking. Mike and I went downstairs and I used the
rest room in the lobby as Mike gave them a piece of his mind. Fourth time was the charm. First on my list for Monday: writing Hilton about my awesome experience.